A change of era? Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has just announced that it is changing gear on the subject of its moderation. After having sought to show its clean pair of heels following the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg's group had set up a fact-checking program, relying in particular on press agencies. But that’s over: the American company will now rely solely on its Facebook and Instagram users to add notes or corrections to content that may contain false or misleading information.
In a blog post dated Tuesday, January 7, entitled “More freedom of expression, fewer errors,” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new head of international affairs, explains that he wants to “put an end to the driftthat has made our rules too restrictive and too susceptible to being applied in a excessive».
«Restore freedom of expression»
Same story from the founder of the group, Mark Zuckerberg, for whom thethe company's current fact-checking system has «reached a point where there are too many errors and too much censorship». "It's time to get back to our roots when it comes to freedom of expression," he explains in a video posted on Instagram and Facebook. The new system, which will first apply to the United States, will resemble the one used by X, Community Notes.
The news should please Donald Trump, who has long accused social networks, and Facebook in particular, of unfairly treating messages from Republican users. "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward a new priority given to freedom of expression," Mark Zuckerberg also points out in his video.
It must be said that the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp has continued to reach out after years of tension to the Republican camp since Donald Trump's re-election last November. In addition to a one-on-one dinner between Trump and Zuckerberg, Meta donated $1 million to support Donald Trump’s inauguration in December. The Facebook founder also named Joel Kaplan, a longtime Republican, as Meta’s head of international affairs.
While the new system appears limited to the United States for now, it could also apply to Europe, where the DSA, the European Union’s Digital Services Regulation, imposes enhanced moderation obligations on social networks. The Old Continent has not escaped criticism from Mark Zuckerberg, for whom "Europe has more and more laws that institutionalize censorship and make it difficult to develop anything innovative".
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